Monday, April 16, 2007

Mass Killings--Western and Islamic

Being in Iraq has offered me a new perspective on suicide bombers. Last spring I got news of a shooting in Seattle. Some random guy came into my friend Ian's party and shot his place up and killed his roommate and friends. Today in the news I see that there is another shooting.

I've struggled to understand the drive of suicide bombers here in the middle east. I know that it has to do with religious beliefs and the idea of dying in a holy war for Islam is supposed to take these bombers straight to heaven. Most of the killers in the states, I am guessing, don't have such a religious basis for their actions.

But we do have a sort of American cowboy mythos, that and the gangster. Going down in a blaze of bullets. I am not sure exactly what I am getting at. Perhaps just trying to understand the human condition.

The bottom line is that every minute of every moment more people are on this earth than have ever been here. Despite war, murder and natural disasters, humans are reproducing at a rate greater than we are dying. Our resources are running out, or will run out. The party is just beginning.